Peace Through Strength (of the Lord)
Micah 3:1-12
In the home where I grew up in suburban Fairfield County, Connecticut, taped to the windowsill above the kitchen sink was a clipping from one of the Christian magazines that my parents subscribed to. I think it was Maryknoll, a Catholic missionary magazine. The clipping came down long ago, even before my parents moved out of that house 25 years ago, but I can still picture the photograph and recall the text that accompanied it word for word: “We cannot call that state of affairs ‘peace’ where the starving are asked to keep quiet so as not to disturb the sleep of the overfed.” Next to the text was a photograph of a starving child.
The clipping hung not more than two feet from the trash can into which my siblings and I scraped the uneaten remnants of our dinner. I suffered through many a canned green bean in order to avoid feeling any guilt when I placed my dishes in the sink. I don’t know whether the author who waxed prophetic about the true nature of peace had in mind the words of Micah from today’s reading, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
These last few weeks of Ordinary Time, before the liturgical calendar transitions into Advent, the scripture readings—both the Old Testament readings and the Gospel readings—get rather fiery and at times downright apocalyptic. They speak of God’s justice and God’s judgment—the justice that God expects and demands that God’s people live out and the judgment that follows when the people make a mockery of that justice. Filled with power and the Spirit of the Lord, the role of the prophet is to proclaim to the people of God both divine justice and judgment.
The prophet Micah, whom we’re encountering for the first time today, is one of the twelve so-called minor prophets of the Old Testament. To call Micah and others “minor” prophets does not mean that their words are less significant than prophets like Jeremiah or Isaiah. It means that their prophetic writings are shorter. Compared with Jeremiah’s 50 chapters or Isaiah’s 66 chapters, the book of Micah is all of just seven chapters. Yet in those seven chapters Micah’s memorable metaphors and uncompromising voice bear witness to a prophet whose words rival in ferocity and forcefulness those of better known prophets like Jeremiah and Isaiah.
Micah was, in fact, a contemporary of Isaiah. Both prophets were active in the latter half of the eighth century BC. But whereas Isaiah prophesied to the king and his royal court in Jerusalem, Micah’s prophetic activity occurred mainly in the more rural areas outside of Jerusalem. Isaiah took to task the political and religious leaders of Jerusalem, addressing directly the king and his royal court and the priests of the temple. Micah’s message, while also addressed to the Jerusalem political and religious establishment, was also directed at wealthy landowners who preyed upon the rural poor. In chapter 2 Micah says of them:
They covet fields and seize them,
houses and take them away;
they oppress householder and house,
people and their inheritance….
The women of my people you drive out
from their pleasant houses;
from their young children you take away
my glory forever (Micah 2:2, 9).
The predatory practices that Micah speaks of had become increasingly common in the latter half of the eighth century BC. Wealthy landowners thrived at the expense of small peasant farmers. The gap between rich and poor grew. In both the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah, the first half of the century had been a time of relative peace and prosperity. But by the latter half of the century, the seeds of decay that earlier prophets like Hosea and Amos had warned of were now bearing rotten fruit in both kingdoms.
But rather than fruit, it’s meat that Micah has on his mind. The Lectionary omits verses one through four, and I understand why. They are harsh and unsettling. But I included them because I don’t want to tame the word of the Lord. Sometimes God’s word is meant to shock us because it’s the only way to get our attention. Jesus himself often spoke in hyperbole, in heightened language that was intended to make the listener stop and do a double-take. Here are just a few examples.
“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:26).
“If your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the hell of fire” (Matt. 18:9).
To speak in dramatic terms with metaphors that make us uneasy is an aspect of prophetic speech, whether it comes from the mouth of Jesus or from one of the prophets. But prophetic speech is not shocking for the sake of being shocking. Micah is not dropping F-bombs on the page. The heightened speech is in furtherance of an important theological point. The image that Micah presents of the political leaders as butchers who carve up the poor is a visceral reminder that injustice is not an abstract concept. Injustice has a face—the face of the widow robbed of her house, the face of the child forced to beg, the face of the stranger turned away.
…injustice is not an abstract concept. Injustice has a face.
It’s not only the political rulers who suffer the wrath of Micah’s message from the Lord. Micah also has a word for the religious leaders who bless injustice in the name of peace, “who cry ‘Peace’ when they have something to eat but declare war against those who put nothing into their mouths.” Micah was far from the only prophet active in Judah in the latter half of the eighth century BC. In addition to Micah and Isaiah, whom I’ve already mentioned, there were many other false prophets, nameless to us, who preached for a price and gave oracles for money. They were more interested in making a profit than speaking as a prophet. Rather than speaking God’s truth to the powers that be, they justified the injustice that they saw all around them and called it good. “The Lord is with you, o mighty king! Keep up the good work, king! It is an honor to preach and prophesy in your presence, king.”
Much of the religious establishment—priests and prophets alike—became enthralled by their proximity to power. Power is intoxicating, perhaps for no one more so than religious leaders who yearn for recognition and honor. Speaking more than 800 years after the prophet Micah, Jesus warns his disciples of the religious leaders of his day. “Beware of the scribes who like to walk around in long robes and who love respectful greetings in the marketplaces and the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets. They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation” (Luke 20:46-47).
In Micah’s day, that condemnation came first of all in the form of God’s silence.
Therefore it shall be night to you, without vision,
and darkness to you, without revelation.
The sun shall go down upon the prophets,
and the day shall be black over them;
the seers shall be disgraced
and the diviners put to shame;
they shall all cover their lips,
for there is no answer from God.
If the prophets will not speak a true word, then they will hear not a single word from the Lord. They will cover their lips because they will have nothing to say.
Worse than God’s silence, however, will be God’s judgment. To the political leaders “who abhor justice and pervert all equity,” and to the religious leaders who “teach for a price” and “give oracles for money, Micah declares that because of them “Zion shall be plowed as a field; Jerusalem shall become a heap of ruins, and the mountain of the temple a wooded height.”
Micah’s prophecy would eventually become reality, not in his lifetime but some 100 years later. The holy city would fall and the temple would be destroyed. Many of those who survived would be led in chains into exile in a foreign land. The judgment of God was indeed fearsome and appeared to be final.
And yet, as harsh as chapter 3 of Micah is, when we turn the page to chapter 4, the word of judgment becomes a word of mercy.
In days to come
the mountain of the Lord’s temple
shall be established as the highest of the mountains
and shall be raised up above the hills.
Peoples shall stream to it,
and many nations shall come and say:
“Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob,
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths.”
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between many peoples
and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation;
neither shall they learn war any more;
but they shall all sit under their own vines and under their own fig trees,
and no one shall make them afraid,
for the mouth of the Lord of hosts has spoken.
The judgment of God always occurs within the larger context of the mercy of God. Even the judgment that Jesus experiences on the cross is for mercy’s sake, so that sinners like ourselves can be reconciled to God and live in peace with one another.
The judgment of God always occurs within the larger context of the mercy of God.
The peace of God—that is the vision heralded by the prophet in chapter 4. And that is the peace by which the Church is now called to live. Our swords beaten into plowshares, our spears into pruning hooks. That is the peace by which we proclaim to the world a power that the world does not know.
But too often the Church has been content to make peace with worldly power. Power—worldly power, that is—is corruptive and corrosive. That’s why the third and final temptation with which the devil tempts Jesus before he begins his ministry is worldly power. “The devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory, and he said to him, ‘All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me’” (Matt. 4:8-9). Jesus, imagine all the good you could do with this power! If you were to rule as king there is no limit to the good that you could do. You could feed empty stomachs, heal broken bodies. You could bring about peace on earth. Is that not what the angels heralded at your birth?
Whenever I am tempted to lament the lack of power and influence in society of the Church as a whole, but more specifically the PC(USA), the Hudson River Presbytery, and Central Presbyterian Church in particular, I remember how, over and over again, the Bible warns of the dangers of worldly power. Sure, I would love to see the well documented decline of the Church reverse, and the pews once again fill each Sunday as they did decades ago. But the source of the Church’s power was never in its numbers. Not in the number of people in the pews nor the amount of the weekly offering.
The power of the Church is the Holy Spirit. That is the power that prompts Micah to prophesy:
But as for me, I am filled with power,
with the spirit of the Lord,
and with justice and might,
to declare to Jacob his transgression
and to Israel his sin.
Micah is filled with power, with the spirit of the Lord. The strength that enables him to proclaim God’s word does not come from within; it is given to him by God. He does not summon it, he receives it.
In the Tea-ology Book Club that meets on Tuesday mornings we’ve been reading a book titled The Holy Spirit. The authors are both former divinity school professors, and often the book reads like it was written by two divinity school professors. Reading some pages I felt like I was back in my first-semester systematic theology class. But sometimes amid the theological jargon a sentence or two will ring out.
Referring to the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples, the authors write: “At Pentecost we discovered that the lives we are living are not our own…. Because the Holy Spirit not only enters our time but also commandeers our lives, we can hope for lives that are adventuresome—even wild and unpredictable.” We can hope for lives that are adventuresome—even wild and unpredictable. Allow me to quote one of the book-club members, who said in response to that sentiment, “Who wants that?”
You want that! I want that! We all want that! At least, we should. If we are to be the church of Jesus Christ, then we should all want to be filled with and empowered by the Holy Spirit because it makes for a more interesting, inviting, and faithful church! A church that’s filled with the Holy Spirit is less concerned with its own survival than with serving its neighbors. And a church that’s filled with the Holy Spirit is a church whose strength cannot be measured in numbers because its strength is the Lord.